The economic costs of chronic health conditions and severe illnesses like diabetes, coronary heart disease or cancer are immense. Several clinical trials give information about the importance of individual behaviour for the prevalence of these illnesses. Changes in health relevant behaviour may...

Starting in 2009, the German state of Saxony distributed sports club membership vouchers among all 33,000 third graders in the state. The policy's objective was to encourage them to develop a long-term habit of exercising. In 2018, we carried out a large register-based survey among several...

The paper addresses the impact of digital health technologies on social inequalities in health. We set focus on mobile health technologies (mHealth) and analyse whether (a) usage of such technologies differs by educational level and (b) whether their usage moderate social inequalities in health...

The income gradient in political participation is a widely accepted stylized fact. This article asks how income effects on political involvement unfold over time. Using nine panel datasets from six countries, it analyzes whether income changes have short-term effects on political involvement,...

In response to increasing health expenditures and a high number of physician visits, the German government introduced a copayment for ambulatory care in 2004 for individuals with statutory health insurance (SHI). Because persons with private insurance were exempt from the copayments, this health...

Deductibles in health insurance are often regarded as a means to contain health care costs when individuals exhibit moral hazard. However, in the absence of moral hazard, voluntarily chosen deductibles may instead lead to self-selection into different insurance contracts. We use a set of new...

Unhealthy behavior can be extremely costly from a micro- and macroeconomic perspective and exploring the determinants of such behavior is highly important from an economist's point of view. We examine whether locus of control (LOC) can explain alcohol consumption as an important domain of health...

In response to the growing burden of obesity, public primary prevention programs against obesity have been widely recommended. Several studies estimated the cost effects of diabetes prevention trials for different countries and found that diabetes prevention can be costeffective. Nevertheless,...

Die Weltgesundheitsorganisation (WHO) hat jüngst Richtlinien für Studien, die Basisdaten für gesundheitspolitische Entscheidungen im Pandemiefall liefern können, veröffentlicht. Durch die Zusammenarbeit zwischen unterschiedlichen Disziplinen kann es gelingen, evidenzbasierte Entscheidungen...